Do any schools recognize their FIRST teams as sports?

[Wayne C.]

To a great degree Kit may be right about schools not wanting to endorse corporate sponsors. But supporting a student team and having a sponsor do the same is sometimes acceptable.

In our first two years our team was facing a school board which was fanatic about not having any kind of corporate logos anywhere on school grounds. As a result we somewhat played down the sponsors at the school and played it up in the community. And each year, after our season was through we would send a Thankyou letter to the Board spelling out all of the support we had received from the sponsor and community, the $10K in Autodesk software the district got for free and the successes the students had.

I think part of what changed their tune was a series of letters the Board received congratulating the team on the progressive nature of the team and applauding our BMS partnership. One of these letters came from the Governor's office and State Dept. of Ed. in response to a student's letter to the Governor (believe me- it surprised us too!). Nobody talks about restricting sponsorship these days.

School Boards and Administrations listen to outspoken parents. FIRST students have parents. Maybe the two should should meet.

Have faith- eventually your schools will come around, especially when they see the sponsorship funds helping out.

OK- back down from the soapbox...

WC